Visitors' Comments

Wishful Thinking

From Matti About the Expense of Going Vegan

[Written in response to images of dogs being killed for food.]

You seriously believe these people could afford to go vegan, or would even
want to? Yeah, this sort of treatment is cruel and in an ideal world it
wouldn't happen, but the right way to stop this isn't to start protesting
against these sorts of things, or impotently declaring "I'm not eating
meat," an attack very similar in strength as throwing single strands of wet
spaghetti at a main battle tank.

Especially useless is the eco-terrorism many activists do at mink farms and
the likes. That's definitely not going to improve the quality of life for
the subsequent animals that the farmer is then forced to buy. It's sad,
really, these people have their heart in the right place, but their methods
are impotent at best, detrimental to their cause at worst.

The right way to end animal cruelty is to alleviate poverty via scientific
advances and above all investment into genetic research.

Would you have something against eating meat that came from an organism
without a brain or even pain receptors, especially if it was very cheap?
Once we understand and can synthesize complete sets of DNA, making an
organism whose sole purpose is to grow meat in easy to package bunches, much
like fruit, becomes something a scientist can do on a computer terminal.

People will always want to eat meat, it's genetically programmed and it is
indeed a very real challenge to simply SURVIVE with only plant proteins, let
alone not experiencing any ill effects.

The only correct place for intervention is at the manufacturing level,
making producing meat from actual animals obsolete. You will also never
eliminate animal cruelty before you eliminate poverty, any organism will
place its own continued survival over the comfort and survival of others,
especially those of a different species.

Reply from Frank and Mary

Thank you very much for writing.

Your contention that it is more expensive to be vegan isn't correct. Our
own lifestyle has proven this for the past 25 years. Our food costs are even
below what the welfare food stamp program allows. Please take a look at the
way we eat and our average daily food costs -
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html

This is the best way to end the suffering of animals and for us humans to
be healthy. We are both in our 70's and need no medications and we rarely
see a doctor except for check-ups.

We have also found that the other suggestion you made about ending the
exploitation of animals haven't been working, because compassionate people
have been working on these issues for many years.

People don't seem to change unless their emotions are shocked and they
begin to feel the pain and suffering of the animals.